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Question:
Hi, I have been tasked to provide "something for caregivers" on a military installation. As of now there has been a flyer distributed advertising a "Caregivers Support Group" for the past 6 months but nobody shows to the meetings. Before researching additional community needs and designing a new intervention, what are the first steps I should take to find out why nobody is participating... whether it be a marketing need, the time of day, need for child care, etc. I have looked through the entire community toolkit website and feel overwhelmed about where to start.

Any help will be sincerely appreciated!!! :)
Answer:

Hi Cynthia,
 
Welcome to the Community Tool Box (CTB) and Ask an Advisor. Hopefully, we can provide you with timely, accurate, useful, and directly applicable information to help you increase participation in your caregivers support group. Great question and fortunately we have a section that will address this issue head-on, no worries.
 
Okay, start on our home page and look for the "Help Taking Action - Guidance on Your Work" button at the top and click it on. Next, click on the "Troubleshooting Guide." So far, so good. Scroll down to number 5 - "There is not enough community participation." Therein, you will find 13 sections, well questions actually for your consideration. Under each question there are resources that can be used to answer that question. For example, question 7 - "Have we improved peoples’ abilities to be involved (e.g., providing information, skill training, and support for participants and members)?" offers a Toolkit (first bullet point) entitled "Increasing Participation" that includes all the information you could possibly need to, well, increase participation. If you look at the top of the page you'll notice two buttons, one is the toolkit "outline" and the other button is entitled "Examples." Within the "Examples" you will see five very concrete examples of real organizations and how they increased participation - really good stuff.
 
So Cynthia, to reiterate: click on "Help Taking Action," click on the "Troubleshooting Guide," click on number 5, scroll down to question seven, and click on the increasing participation toolkit and you've arrived. I hope this is what you're looking for and can be put it to immediate use. With that, I thank you for visiting the CTB and for your great question about increasing participation in a caregiver's support group; increasing participation is a particularly salient issue for many people who work in communities so we really appreciate your taking the time to visit us. If you find that the resources provided don't meet your needs, please feel free to come back and let us know so we can work together to find a more sufficient answer. Be well, take care, do good work.
 
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Question Date: أربعاء, 06/01/2016